


Broken

by AifasInTheSky



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Character Death, Child Neglect, Depression, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, M/M, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts, not quite, not quite unrequited love but... yeah, robot-involved dynamics are familial, the unrequited love tag goes for original helmet party, these aren't the MvM robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:41:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23679313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AifasInTheSky/pseuds/AifasInTheSky
Summary: Dell, struggling with what the years have turned him into, builds a family.
Relationships: Engineer/Soldier (Team Fortress 2), Soldier/Zhanna (Team Fortress 2)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please read the warnings in the tags. And take care.

"Ya didn't learn a thing from your da's mistakes, didn't ya," said Dell with a dry chuckle.

He _was_ getting old, wasn't he. His joints creaked almost as much as the house now— _it needs repairs_ , he thought, though he had the feeling it wasn't the first time the idea came about.

It used to piss him off.

He came to accept things would be often a surprise to him. Or maybe he didn't. Sometimes, he swelled with fury and the only things that were left afterwards was pain and broken beer bottles he didn't remember ever buying.

It hurt. Thinking of the past. Of what he had been; of what could have been.

Of what he'd never wanted to be.

These days he wore his loneliness like an old, inherited shirt fitted to his size. It felt unfair and deserved at the same time.

\------

"Why do the birds go on singing…"

Dell remembered the scorn in da's face when he caught his ma singing it. He remembered ma's voice, trembling in sorrow, as his da faced the truck and the horizon.

“Why do the stars glow above…”

He remembered Solly, helmet down, shoulders trembling, as Dell shouted at him, hit the wall of the workshop with his mechanic fist, leaving an indent behind.

“Don’t they know it’s the end of the world…”

He remembered when he came back, and found Solly and Zhanna among the team, with a necklace and an eternal promise in tow.

“It ended when I lost your love.”

\-------

Tavish wouldn't laugh.

He would’ve understood. He’d had his own reasons to drink. But he’d also always worked better with the weight of the booze on his head.

He could say that too—only to a certain degree.

And this ain't it. This, he thought, is the point where his better judgement's long gone. This is the point of missing limbs, of experiments anyone would expect more from Medic than from him. He was on the brink; of what, he didn't know.

He only knew what he wanted.

\-------

He built. He built. He built.

The booze tormented him. Let his thoughts run to the forefront of his mind, let them echo in his skull until he wanted to pierce it—pierce _anything_ —to get rid of them.

He was aware, then more than never, of the fact it was _difficult_. His gears were rusty; he got stuck in the middle of calculations once and once again, and it got worse the more it reminded him of how out of shape he was. He felt stupid.

He felt his ability was slipping away, and if he couldn’t do the only thing he’d ever been good at, well. It might point at his kingdom come.

So he refused to acknowledge it. Despite what the beer said; despite what his bones and joints relentlessly croaked to him.

And he built.

\-----

His children were born from memories.

Πρ was born from warm, melancholy thoughts of fireplaces and crayon drawings, from the smell of smoke and kerosene and from fatherly love. His grief, the hollowness he felt moved him forward, guided every step of his coding, until he got him ba—

Until Πρ woke up for the first time.

Πρ followed him everywhere, at first. He tried to make him understand, but the kid was afraid—of what, he didn’t know—and insisted to stay beside him, didn’t want to lose him from sight. He flinched at the first touch of metal against his good hand, when Π first tried to take it. The cold stabbed him in the heart all over again.

Then came the guilt at the hurt, guilty beep of his friend.

“Please,” he croacked, vocal cords unused to emit coherent sound. “The other hand.”

He needed to find him proper clothes. He refused to let him wear _his_.

S4L, however, was born from bitterness, from the pain and hollowness that tinted the memory of loud guffaws, of a trumpet, of gunpowder in the air and a smirk and honey and a necklace of human ears—

S4L was very combative.

He tried to kill him. More than once. Dell’d had to defend himself, else he perished. And oh, maybe he would’ve preferred it, but now he couldn’t leave Π alone, could he.

Π had come in the middle every time he was there during the activation. It only ended in more pain and repairs. Π’s cries were heartbreaking as he locked him up to work in peace.

He gulped away the guilt. The memories of his father threatening him to step away from the workshop—a gripped bottle—or else.

The tenth time he tried, S4L didn’t move.

He carefully approached him. “S4L?” he asked.

S4L cocked his head.

“I’m not a threat,” Dell said, trying to believe himself.

S4L turned his sight away.

Dell’s stomach twirled. And he knew things would indeed never be right again.

\-----

He wouldn’t disassemble them.

He’d given them life. They were their own people now. They needed someone to take care of them, too.

So, he lived.

In the mornings, Π came looking for him to start the day. Otherwise, he wouldn’t leave the bed. But Π was there, so he rose, trudged to the bathroom, washed his teeth. Π washed the dishes, black rubber gloves on, and Dell would try not to look and lose himself down memory lane again.

He’d make an attempt to care for the land surrounding the Conagher Estate.

The task felt bigger than him, all the time. It wasn’t too large, but still it was large enough to be a problem. He couldn’t ignore it anymore: his rheum reared up every time he did more than a few tasks, or even when the weather was about to get rough. He couldn’t do it regularly enough.

“Beep,” Π said once, pointing at S4L as Dell cursed his pained back and knee. S4L cocked his head again.

He gulped.

Putting S4L in charge of taking care of mowing the land was definitely a mistake. He was too much of a destructive force—he tore angrily at the grass, he scared the small animals on his way, sometimes even stepping on bird eggs by accident, and he beep-growled angrily at everything or everyone that got in the middle of his task.

Dell didn’t care, anyways. So, he left him to it.

The three of them would go inside. Π insisted on him cooking something fun, and clapped his hands every time he grabbed his ma’s old recipe book.

S4L looked from afar. He could always feel his gaze.

Once he’d looked. It had been full of wonder—he knew how to read it; it was _his son_ —until it died down in reluctant disinterest.

He never looked again.

He ate in silence. Π would stay with him; S4L wouldn’t, retreating to his room as soon as the cooking finished.

He drank and drank, and went to bed, alone, after Π’s friendly, worried goodbye beep.

Wash, rinse and repeat.

\-----

He’d programmed S4L to speak. But he never did.

He only growled at birds and raccoons and that twisted Dell’s heart every time, remembering how—how _him_ would take care of his beloved pets. Dell shouted at him to stop when he could, only to be met with a furious gaze.

He gulped down his frustration, his anger. He had to.

\-----

Π was a ray of sunshine. But not enough to warm up Dell’s heart.

Π knew this.

Despite that, he woke him up every morning, he pushed him to move, to do, to live. He seemed determined to return the favor of bringing him to life.

That also meant he could be… overbearing. Always fussing over him.

Dell only wanted to be left to wither some days.

But he rose anyways.

\-----

Π had a breakdown.

Dell found him, eyes blinking on and off, hands clutching his head, on the floor of the kitchen one day.

Dell panicked. He didn’t know what was wrong, only that something was, very. He ran up to him, and when he noticed—

“Deep beeps, buddy. Come on, follow my voice. One, two…”

Slowly, Π recovered from the panic attack, beeps slowing down as he came back to ground.

“It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay,” he reassured him, keeping his distance until he noticed everything was over. Then he ran up to him, and hugged him tight.

Π’s beeps sounded like sobs.

S4L looked from afar, silent. Eyes—lights—cold with fury.

Dell swallowed.

\-----

“You do not love me.”

He turned around in the bed in surprise. He didn’t recognize the voice at first—he’d only heard it all that time ago, when programming him, and even that was a haze now. But he could easily recognize those blue lights staring at him from above.

“S4L.”

“You do not. Love me. You do not love us. Maybe Π. But it is not worth it.”

“What in Sam’s Hill are you prattling about, S4L?”

“Look at Π. Look at what your _love_ has done, you bastard. I am happy unloved, anyways.”

And Dell figured out his mistake.

He gave up on S4L, a long time ago. Before ever giving him a chance. He thought him tainted by his own demons, his own bitterness and self-hate and hurt, and maybe he was. But S4L was much more than that.

He’d always been.

Solly would be so mad at him. So disappointed.

Maybe that was why he left.

As S4L turned away to leave, Dell snapped out of his thoughts and yelled:

“Wait!”

S4L stopped on the door, looking over his shoulder.

“I _do_ love you, S4L.” He felt a tear trail down his cheek. “I’m sorry.”

S4L looked away. He left.

Dell knew he’d never see him again.

\-----

The house felt empty without all the beeping.

Π was pretty silent for days. He kept going through the motions of his routine, but with a lackluster enthusiasm.

Dell just wanted to disappear. But he’d failed his children enough. He’d right his head up and be who he was meant to be.

He tried to warm up Π’s days as he’d done for him so many times before. It worked, up to a point—Π always looked suspicious, like he didn’t believe his happiness to be true. And he could see why, though it broke his heart every time.

He kept going, though. He had to set things right. He needed to be responsible.

He loved Π. He truly did. And he didn’t want to see him hurt anymore.

He loved S4L too. But he couldn’t do good by him anymore.

\-----

“You piece of crap.”

… Was he dreaming? Was it a nightmare? He hadn’t heard that voice in years.

“You will wake up. You will see your son, you will fix things, as you always did. It is an order, maggot.”

“… Solly?”

“… You were always stubborn like an old mule. Do not disappoint your unit. Do not disappoint Pyro. Do not disappoint Zhanna. Do not disappoint _me_.” He saw—felt—a lopsided smile. “I know you won’t.”

“Wait—” he said, and tried to reach, to grasp at Solly’s arm, but he was far, far away, where he always feared he was, out of reach, and no matter how much he cried in the darkness of his closed-up room, he’d never be able to bring him back.

He wiped his tears away. But… maybe he could still reach S4L.

“Π,” he called, throat raw. Π opened the door, peeking nervously. “Grab the truck. We’re going to find him.”

Π’s lights flared up in surprise. He ran off almost instantly after.

Dell squared himself up for what he had to do.

\-----

He found him—and Dell almost laughed at the painful reminder—in a box in a dumpster. Rusty and torn apart.

“Oh, S4L. Oh, no.”

They brought him back home, where Dell assembled him again. Most of the missing or weathered down pieces were easily replaceable for him; for others, he had to improvise.

It took him a long time, but despite his aching bones and aging mind and everything in between, he found renewed strength in his purpose.

Π looked from the door without intervening, but vigilant.

The moment came to repeat history.

S4L blinked his red and blue eyes open.

“Hi,” Dell said, unsure.

S4L stared. Dell swallowed.

“I’m sorry, S4L, I—”

“Why did you not program me back, maggot? Made me more obedient? Made me like you?”

Dell flinched, but he kept the stare.

“That wouldn’t have been you, wouldn’t it?”

S4L cocked his head.

“I—I want to try again—”

“You cannot,” S4L interrupted. Dell’s heart broke again. “I am different now. But,” he said, and extended his mechanic arm, “we can walk forward from now on.”

Dell stared at S4L’s hand until it started to blur. Tears rolling down his cheeks, he took it with all the strength he could muster.

“Deal, pardner.” He chuckled wetly.

\-----

Things were far from perfect. He’d truly messed up, hadn’t he.

Some days Π would stay distant, like he was lost, and nothing they did would make the clouds go away.

S4L still kept a distance, quiet, and would growl at Dell when he felt his personal bubble threatened.

But at the same time, things weren't hopeless. Dell reflected on this as the three of them cooked one of his ma's recipes, Π and S4L playing with the flour. They had each other, now, despite everything.

And after everything Dell had done, it was more than he could’ve hoped for.

**Author's Note:**

> This was... therapeutic to write. I don't want to talk much about it, to be honest, and I really hope this doesn't resonate with you. The ending is not ideal, but it's something that happens. If I could choose, I'd have S4L leave and live elsewhere, maybe, just maybe keeping in touch, but the world is tough for a robot.
> 
> I don't intend to make an abuser/neglecter apology of any kind. Also I apologise for doing this to Engineer of all mercs; personally I dislike Dickgineer headcanons. I've been just... struggling with family and myself. And this came to be.
> 
> Please take care.
> 
>  **Edit:** This fic actually has a playlist, or at least what I was listening to while I wrote it. This is it, in case you're interested ---> [[Spotify Link]](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4PHvSKZoV7emuLIw5G0hpj?si=GYR8QyGxTmKjW3I7lVjLxQ)


End file.
